The American Mafia - Who Was Who: Bonanno

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Altamura, Thomas (1913-1967)

Born New York, Nov. 3, 1913.
Killed North Bay Village, FL, Oct. 31, 1967

Altamura

Altamura, sometimes called "the Enforcer," was a lifelong criminal who became supervisor of Gambino Crime Family loan sharking in the south Florida area. He was murdered as a result of a turf war with Anthony "Big Tony" Esperti, linked with the Bonanno Crime Family.[1]

Altamura was a native of New York City, the second of nine children born to immigrant parents. His father, Vincent, from Taranto in the southern Italian mainland, worked as a tailor. His mother, Rose, was from Sicily. He grew up in the borough of Queens. His formal education ended shortly after he reached high school. He worked for a time at his father's tailor shop and briefly held truck driving and sales jobs as he moved full time into a career on the wrong side of the law.[2]

His criminal record in New York dated back to 1931. As a minor, he was acquitted following an automobile theft arrest and sentenced to probation unlawful entry after the burglary of a Bronx speakeasy. He later served three long terms in Sing Sing Prison.[3]

He was sentenced in Queens County in April 1932 to serve three to six years on a robbery conviction. (Then eighteen, Altamura of Corona, Queens, also known as Thomas Melba, and accomplice Peter Nastasi, nineteen, of the Bronx, were initially charged with first degree robbery, petit larceny and second degree assault after holding up the owner of a Roulston Grocery store in Corona. They pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery.) Soon after his release from that term, he was convicted of a robbery in the Bronx and sentenced to ten to twenty years.[4]

Trafficante

While on parole in the summer of 1944, he was charged with attempted robbery of a tavern in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.[5] He and two other men entered the tavern on 37th Avenue after hours. During the attempted robbery, the men became frightened and fled. Altamura reportedly dropped his wallet on the way out of the tavern.[6]

In the 1960s, Altamura was involved in Gambino Crime Family loan sharking rackets in south Florida. In this period, authorities noted his ownership of Sonny's Restaurant in Miami Beach and his close working relationship with Tampa-area Mafia boss Santo Trafficante.[7]

At two o'clock in the morning on October 31, 1967, fifty-three-year-old Altamura entered the Harbor Lounge, attached to the Place for Steak restaurant, on the 79th Street Causeway in North Bay Village, Florida. He was immediately struck by bullets. Two .38-caliber slugs hit him in the back of the head and three others penetrated his back and his side as he turned. There were about a half dozen witnesses to the shooting in the well-lit establishment. As Altamura fell to the floor dead, his killer and a woman companion left the lounge. The woman, Audrey Fowler, girlfriend of underworld-connected former boxer Anthony "Big Tony" Esperti, left her purse behind at the bar.[8]

Esperti

Police found $800 in cash and a $10,000 cashier's check in Altamura's possession. Hours later, thirty-seven-year-old Esperti surrendered to police after hearing that he was wanted for first-degree murder. He claimed to know nothing of the Altamura killing. Esperti, originally from Brownsville, Brooklyn, was at the time free on bond awaiting his appeal of an extortion conviction.[9]

Esperti was indicted in mid-January, 1968, for the Altamura murder.[10] His first trial, in Miami, resulted in a March 1968 hung jury.[11] He once again came to trial in autumn 1971, this time at Bartow, Florida. Esperti was already serving his extortion sentence in Atlanta Federal Prison.

Witnesses stated that they saw Esperti shoot Altamura.[12] A prison cellmate of Esperti, Joseph Delino, testified that Esperti told him about killing Altamura. According to Delino, the two gangsters had quarreled about rackets territories and Altamura warned Esperti to stay away from the 79th Street Causeway, a busy thoroughfare connecting the city of Miami with North Bay Village. (Informant William Dara told the FBI that other Mafiosi attempted to mediate the quarrel between Altamura and Esperti. During this time, Altamura threatened to kill Esperti if he ever saw him at the 79th Street Causeway.) Esperti responded to the warning by murdering Altamura.[13] That second trial resulted in Esperti's conviction.[14]

Discussed in:

"'Willie the Tile Maker' Dara passed Mafia secrets to Feds," by Edmond Valin.

Notes:

Doerner, Fred W. Jr., "La Cosa Nostra Miami Division," FBI report, file no. 92-6054-2110, NARA no. 124-10293-10346, Sept. 11, 1967, p. 21.
Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, Inmate no. 85935, received April 18, 1932; Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, Inmate no. 92799, received Dec. 11, 1936; New York State Census of 1925, Queens County, Assembly District 3, Election District 33.
"2 youths given Sing Sing terms on robbery pleas," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 16, 1932, p. 4; "Mobster slain in Miami; suspect surrenders," New York Daily News, Nov. 1, 1967, p. 3.
Sing Sing Prison Admission Registers; "2 youths given Sing Sing terms on robbery pleas"; "Dropped wallet nets parolee as thief foiled in tavern raid," Brooklyn Eagle, June 19, 1944, p. 11.
"Tavern stickup suspect is held," New York Daily News, July 2, 1944, p. B3.
"Dropped wallet nets parolee as thief foiled in tavern raid."
"High exposes Miami hoods," Miami News, Aug. 7, 1963, p. 1; "Tampa detective describes how Trafficante tied in," Tampa Tribune, Oct. 16, 1963, p. 13.
Florida Death Index, Dade County, October 1967; U.S. Social Security Death Index, 081-20-1222, October 1967; "Mobster slain in Miami; suspect surrenders"; Roderus, Frank, "Retrial elements bizarre," Tampa Tribune, Sept. 6, 1971, p. B1.
"Mobster slain in Miami; suspect surrenders."
"Esperti indicted in killing," Miami News, Jan. 17, 1968, p. 3.
Sosin, Milt, "Esperti asks murder charge be dismissed," Miami News, Oct. 30, 1970, p. 5.
"Two testify they saw Altamura gunned down," Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 14, 1971, p. B1.
"Second Esperti trial will go to jury today," Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 15, 1971, p. B1; SAC Miami, "La Cosa Nostra AR-Conspiracy," FBI Airtel, file no. 92-6054-2178, NARA no. 124-10289-10186, Nov. 14, 1967, p. 2.
"Esperti attorney seek new trial," Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 9, 1971, p. 6.

Dara, William (1905-1982)

Born Sicily, July, 1905
Died Kenner, LA, July, 9, 1982.

A longtime member of the Bonanno Crime Family, William Dara is believed to have become an informant for the FBI later in his life.

William was born in Sicily in 1905 and arrived in the United States with his mother and two younger brothers about 1910. His father Nicholas traveled to the U.S. several years earlier. The family settled on Pitkin Avenue, near Vermont Street, in the East New York section of Brooklyn, where Nicholas worked as a barber. The Daras changed addresses through the years - to New Jersey Avenue and then to Crescent Street - but always remained within the East New York neighborhood. As a young adult, William began working as a tile setter. He was known from then on as "Willie the Tile Maker."

William and several of his siblings got into trouble with the law. Crime became a second career for William. His arrest record dates back at least to 1931, when he, his brother Michael and teenager John Cimino were arrested for stealing a slot machine from a candy store on Saratoga Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. (The store owner did not appear for arraignment, and the three were discharged.) William Dara and Anthony Rizzo were captured in December 1934 as they attempted to rob a tire store on Brooklyn's Lafayette Avenue near Ashland Place. Dara appears to have been well known to police by 1940, when he and some Brooklyn associates were arrested for vagrancy.

He became an inducted member of the Bonanno Crime Family about 1950, serving for a time under his cousin, capodecina Mike Sabella. Dara later relocated to the Miami, Florida, area, where he ran a night club and conducted gambling rackets that were coordinated with Michael Coppola's Genovese Crime Family crew in South Florida.

In the 1960s, Dara appears to have provided information to the FBI on Tampa-based Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., other members of the Trafficante organization, and members of New York-based and Chicago-based mobs with operations in South Florida. Some of the FBI's information on the "Banana War" struggle within the Bonanno Family seems to have come from Dara.

Dara died in a plane crash at Kenner, Louisiana, a few days before his seventy-seventh birthday. He and his wife were taking a commercial Pan American flight to Las Vegas. All 145 people on the Boeing 727 and eight people on the ground were killed.

Read more:

"'Willie the Tile Maker' Dara passed Mafia secrets to Feds," by Edmond Valin, mafiahistory.us.

Other sources:

New York State Census of 1925, Kings County, Assembly District 22, Ward 15, Election District 29, no. 2125 Pitkin Avenue.
United States Census of 1920, New York State, Kings County, Enumeration District 1416, no. 2125 Pitkin Avenue.
United States Census of 1930, NeW York State, Kings County, Enumeration District 24-492, no. 321 New Jersey Avenue.
United States Census of 1940, New York State, Kings County, Enumeration District 24-2677, no. 584 Crescent Street.
"3 hold-up suspects freed when victim dodges court," New York Daily News, Oct. 14, 1931, Brooklyn section, p. 14.
"Thugs escape with $1,300 in bold robbery," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 17, 1934, p. 2.
"Three men were arrested...," New York Times, April 14, 1940, p. 24.
"149 killed in Orleans crash," Shreveport LA Times, July 10, 1982, p. 1.

Gallo, Joseph (1929-1972)

Born Brooklyn, NY, April 6, 1929.

Killed New York, NY, April 7, 1972.

Early in his career, Joey "Crazy Joe"/"Joe the Blond" Gallo served as an enforcer for the Brooklyn-based Joe Profaci crime family. Gallo is said to have bragged about his involvement in the 1957 assassination of Albert Anastasia.

Gallo and his brothers, Albert and Larry, were called to testify before the McClellan Committee in 1958 and answered all questions by citing the Fifth Amendment.

Profaci's Family and that of Joe Bonanno, linked by marriage, comprised a strong conservative wing of the Mafia's ruling Commission. By 1960, the Gallo brothers had serious disagreements with Profaci - reportedly related to controversial mob killings, rewards promised but undelivered by the boss and hefty fees for crime family membership. The brothers attempted to force concessions from Profaci by kidnapping top crime family lieutenants. Profaci initially agreed to terms and then turned on the Gallos. The rebel group took their complaints to Carlo Gambino, boss of another family and leader of the Commission's so-called "liberal" wing. Gambino reportedly took the complaints to a meeting of the Commission in 1962 and called on "Old Man" Profaci to retire.

When Profaci and Bonanno objected, the Commission - faced with the prospect of a civil war throughout the mob - gave Profaci a vote of confidence. The Gallos fell in line momentarily.

When Profaci died of cancer later in 1962, his crime family split apart, probably due to meddling by Gambino and allies. (The Bonanno family also splintered as a result of Commission politics.) Joe Magliocco, Profaci's underboss, attempted to control the family, but he was ill-suited to the job. The Gallo faction grew in strength and openly broke with Magliocco.

Magliocco died of a heart attack in 1963 and was succeeded by Gambino ally Joe Colombo. Colombo, helped by Joe Gallo's imprisonment for attempting to extort money from a Manhattan cafe owner, was able to negotiate a peace and restore crime family order.

Joe Gallo was released from prison in 1971 and was the prime suspect when Colombo was assassinated in that year. (Apparently, Gambino himself had grown disgusted with Colombo's publicity-seeking behavior and decided to eliminate him.)

Gallo reportedly declared that he was going straight and announced he was beginning work on his memoirs, a book the underworld did not want written. Early in the morning of April 7, 1972, continuing his birthday celebration begun on the evening of April 6, Gallo and some companions settled in for a meal at Umberto's Clam House in Manhattan's Little Italy. A gunman stepped into the building and shot Joe Gallo to death.

Related Links:

Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

Galante, Carmine (1910-1979)

Born New York, NY, Feb. 21, 1910.

Killed Brooklyn, NY, July 12, 1979.

"Lilo" Galante was regarded as one of the more ruthless of the American Mafiosi. Many believe he ascended to the leadership of the Bonanno crime Family in New York upon Philip "Rusty" Rastelli's 10-year conviction in 1974 for extortion. Some insist that Galante was never recognized as Family boss and only led a rebellious wing of the Bonanno clan.

Galante certainly had designs on the boss job and looks to have meddled a bit in affairs of other Families. That earned him a number of powerful enemies.

Galante, reportedly born in New York to Vincenzo and Vincenza Russo Galante, was arrested numerous times, beginning with a robbery and assault charge when he was just 16 years old. He was arrested for attempted robbery in 1930. He was considered a prime suspect in the 1943 murder of Carlo Tresca (the murder was committed while Galante was out of prison on parole). He invested in a number of legitimate businesses, including the Rosina Costume Company of Brooklyn, the Abco Vending Company of West New York, NJ, and the Latimer Shipping Company of Manhattan.

Galante is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the international narcotics trade. He made frequent trips from New York to Montreal and Sicily and was known to employ fiercely loyal Sicilian immigrants ("Zips") as bodyguards. His attendance at a 1956 Mafia convention near Endicott, NY, was documented when he was caught speeding on a return trip to New York City. His presence at the Apalachin convention the following year was suspected but not documented.

When Rastelli emerged from prison early, in 1979, it is believed that he and Gambino Family underboss Aniello Dellacroce set Galante up. Galante was shot to death at the conclusion of a meal in the grotto of Joe and Mary's Restaurant, 205 Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn, on July 12, 1979. He was 69 years old.

Galante's Sicilian immigrant ("Zip") bodyguards proved to be of little worth on the occasion and are believed to have cooperated in the hit. Rastelli regained control of the Bonanno Family and remained boss until he was once again successfully prosecuted in 1985.

Related Links:

Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

Evola, Natale (1907-1973)

Born New York, NY, Feb. 22, 1907.

Died New York, NY, Aug. 28, 1973.

Natale "Joe Diamond" Evola stepped up to the leadership of the Bonanno Crime Family in the late 1960s, after Joseph Bonanno's second term as boss ended with retirement.

Some sources indicate that the Bonanno family was so demoralized after years of civil war and disgrace before the national Commission that Evola took over by default. Low-key Evola, who had significant investments in trucking and garment companies, has largely escaped the notice of history. Even Joe Bonanno's "A Man of Honor" barely mentioned him (Evola was an usher at Bonanno's wedding). Evola had close relationships with other crime families, including the Gambino and Genovese clans.

Sources generally agree that he cooperated with - rather than resisted - powerful underworld bosses, Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino.

In 1957, Evola was among the crowd of Mafiosi identified as attending the Genovese-called Apalachin convention. He and other attendees were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with their post-Apalachin statements to investigators. The convictions were later overturned.

Shortly after Apalachin, Evola was convicted along with Genovese of a conspiracy to violate narcotics laws.

The Commission meddled considerably in Bonanno family matters during the 1960s. After endorsing Gaspar DiGregorio as boss during Joseph Bonanno's many months in hiding, the Commission soured on DiGregorio following Bonanno's reappearance. Paul Sciacca took over the DiGregorio faction. Bonanno's sudden departure from New York in the late 1960s left the clan leaderless and in chaos. Leadership panels were attempted. It seems Evola was unable to completely restore order to the family.

In 1971-72, investigators gained significant information on Evola's operation, as well as that of then-Lucchese-boss Carmine Tramunti, by bugging a trailer used by the bosses and their lieutenants as a meeting place. Evidence suggested that Evola was engaged in garment district labor racketeering, drug trafficking and hijacking.

Evola's health was failing by then. He died of cancer in 1973. He was reportedly unmarried and lived at the time of his death with his elderly mother at 972 Bayridge Parkway in Brooklyn.

Evola was replaced for a time by his underboss Philip "Rusty" Rastelli. Rastelli, not yet popular with the Bonanno capos, was thought to be merely keeping the seat warm. Former Bonanno underboss Carmine Galante, a genuine power in the family, was finishing a jail term for drug trafficking.

Related Links:

Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

DiGregorio, Gaspar (1905-1970)

Born Trapani, Sicily, 1905.

Died Smithtown, NY, June 11, 1970.

DiGregorio, an in-law of the Bonannos and Magaddinos, was a clothing manufacturer and a prominent member of the Bonanno Crime Family in New York City. DiGregorio served as best man in Joseph Bonanno's wedding and was godfather to Bonanno's oldest son Salvatore (Bill).

DiGregorio was a native of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and was likely connected with the Magaddino and Bonanno families while in Sicily. After entering the U.S., he married the sister of Buffalo crime boss Stefano Magaddino. After her death, he remarried.

He was a trusted group leader within the Brooklyn-based Bonanno Crime Family. With support from Magaddino, DiGregorio seized control of the Bonanno crime Family after Joe Bonanno disappeared in the early 1960s. Joe Bonanno's son fought the takeover and the so-called Banana Wars were the result.

Joe Bonanno re-emerged in 1966 and promised to get his Family in order. The Mafia Commission, which had pushed out Bonanno and welcomed DiGregorio's takeover of the Bonanno clan, withdrew their support for DiGregorio. DiGregorio was in poor health and seemed unwilling to engage in a fight with his old friends the Bonannos. Paul Sciacca, DiGregorio's top lieutenant, took over day to day operations of the anti-Bonanno faction and eventually made himself a candidate for boss.

After several years of quiet living with family on Long Island, DiGregorio succumbed to lung cancer at St. John's Hospital in Smithtown on June 11, 1970. He was buried in St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale.

Related Links:

Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us

Colombo, Joseph (1923-1978)

Born Brooklyn, NY, June 16, 1923.

Died Blooming Grove, NY, May 22, 1978.

Joseph Colombo was among the more outspoken of the New World Mafia chieftains. After rising to power in what was previously the Profaci Family in the mid-1960s, he founded the Italian-American Civil Rights League in 1970 and actively sought publicity. Claiming that reports and rumors of the Mafia were designed to damage the reputation of Italian-Americans, he conducted public rallies, spoke frequently with the press and used his League to picket the FBI offices.

It is believed that Colombo came to power through the influence of Carlo Gambino after Colombo informed on a plot by then-Profaci Family boss Joseph Magliocco and Joseph Bonanno to assassinate bosses Gambino and Tommy Lucchese.

The Commission, particularly Carlo Gambino, quickly grew tired of the media attention Colombo and the rest of organized crime were getting as a result of Italian-American Civil Rights League activities. It is believed that the Gambino-dominated Commission ordered Colombo's death in 1971. The rebellious Gallo element in Colombo's family (Joey Gallo had recently been released from prison) or a more conservative faction which wanted to take a harder line against the Gallo group were possibly involved in the murder.

Colombo was mortally wounded during a League Italian Unity Day rally on June 28, 1971. A man named Jerome Johnson, disguised as a news photographer, approached Colombo and shot him three times in the head and neck with an automatic pistol. Johnson was wrestled to the ground, and a second unknown gunman shot him to death with a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson. The second gunman escaped.

Colombo lapsed into a coma and remained unconscious until his death on May 22, 1978.

Joe Bonanno considered Colombo one of the instigators of trouble within the Bonanno Family in the early 1960s. Bonanno claimed that Colombo was working directly with Buffalo's Stefano Magaddino (a relative of Bonanno's) and indirectly with Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese to take over Bonanno's organization.

Colombo, born June 16, 1923, was raised in south Brooklyn. His father, Anthony Colombo, was a member of the Profaci crime family. In 1938, when Joseph was a teenager, Anthony Colombo and girlfriend Christine Oliveri were found strangled to death in Colombo's car.

Joseph Colombo had a brief and unsuccessful career in the Coast Guard, from which he was discharged due to emotional problems. He worked as a longshoreman and a real estate agent, and, for a time, as a salesman for a meat company run by the Gambino and Castellano families.

Links:

Bonventre, Vito (1875-1930)

Born Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, 1875.

Killed Brooklyn, NY, July 15, 1930.

Born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, in 1875, this second cousin of Joseph Bonanno crossed the Atlantic with a number of other relatives in 1906. He became a successful bootlegger in Brooklyn and a powerful member of Nicola Schiro's crime family. He possibly served briefly as a successor to Schiro atop that organization.

For many years, the Bonanno-Bonventre-Magaddino clan in Castellammare battled their rivals, the Buccellato Family. In the 1910s and early 1920s, that bloody rivalry reached American shores. Vito Bonventre appears to have played a major role in the elimination of Buccellatos in the U.S., and he was briefly a suspect in the New Jersey murder of Magaddino enemy Camillo Caiozzo in 1921 (the Good Killers case.)

According to Bonanno, Bonventre became the second wealthiest member of Cola Schiro's Brooklyn Family in the late 1920s (with Schiro being the wealthiest).

As the organization of boss of bosses Joe Masseria moved to put down an uprising of Castellammarese Mafiosi in Brooklyn, Bonventre was targeted. He was murdered outside his home garage on July 15, 1930. His murder and that of Detroit Castellammarese leader Gaspar Milazzo a month earlier are often considered the opening salvo of the Castellammarese War.

Related Links:

Article: The Good Killers by Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona - Mafiahistory.us

Bonanno, Salvatore "Bill" (1932-2008)

Born Brooklyn, NY, Nov. 5, 1932

Died Tucson, AZ, Jan. 1, 2008.

Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno is the son of Joe Bonanno and the author of "Bound by Honor" and other books about the underworld.

Born in Brooklyn and educated at the University of Arizona, Salvatore served in various leadership positions within the Bonanno organization and was groomed by his father to take over the Family. The relationship between the two men is the subject of Gay Talese's largely unreliable journalistic endeavor, "Honor Thy Father."

Much of the Family membership and all of the Mafia Commission objected to Salvatore succeeding his father, leading to a civil war in the Family in the late 1960s. A faction of the Family led by Commission-favored Gaspar DiGregorio allegedly ambushed the younger Bonanno and his supporters at a supposed nighttime peace conference on Troutman Street in Brooklyn.

DiGregorio's men opened up with rifles and shotguns. Bonanno's side returned fire. It was said that the two sides fired 100 rounds at each other.

The incident - the most exciting of Bill Bonanno's underworld career - was either a complete fabrication or grossly exaggerated. There was no report of a single injury occurring at Troutman Street.

Salvatore Bonanno was imprisoned several times, beginning with a contempt conviction in 1968. He served four years in the Terminal Island prison near Los Angeles after being convicted of using a stolen credit card.

Bonanno, Joseph (1905-2002)

Born Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Jan. 18, 1905.

Died Tucson, AZ, May 12, 2002.

Referred to in the press as "Joe Bananas," Bonanno is the unusual case of a long-time Mafia boss who wrote his own autobiography. Bonanno's book, "A Man of Honor," deals at length with the author's personal Robin Hood fantasy and very little with the assortment of crimes of which he certainly was guilty. (It was most likely written because even the duped Gay Talese had not reported all the the malarkey handed to him by the Bonannos during his research for "Honor Thy Father.")

Born Jan. 18, 1905 in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Bonanno first came to the U.S. with his family (established Mafia leaders) at age 3. The family returned to Sicily when he was about 7 to protect its interests there. Bonanno traveled back to Brooklyn in 1924. He entered the country illegally through Florida and settled with his Brooklyn NY relatives, the Bonventres.

Within a few years, Bonanno was actively bootlegging for the Cola Schiro organization. The group was cofounded by another Bonanno relative, Stefano Maggadino, some years earlier. It included a large number of Castellammarese immigrants.

Bonanno was a staunch supporter of Salvatore Maranzano in the Castellammarese War, but was welcomed into the new Mafia hierarchy after Maranzano's assassination in 1931.

Bonanno claimed he was made boss of the Brooklyn Castellammarese clan after Maranzano's death. He held that role and expanded his family's interests into Canada, Arizona, Colorado and California - with some serious competition (made famous in the press as the "Banana Wars") and occasional interruptions (he was once allegedly kidnapped) - into the 1980s.

After Bonanno's retirement, his crime family was kicked off the Commission in the 1980s.
Bonanno died of natural causes May 12, 2002.

Related Links:

Doto, Giuseppe "Joe Adonis" (1901-1971)

Born Montemarano, Italy, Nov. 22, 1901.

Died Ancona, Italy, Nov. 26, 1971.

Adonis was born Giuseppe Antonio Doto in Montemarano, an Italian village within the province of Avellino, not far from the City of Naples. His family brought him to the United States when he was a child. His father Michele/Michael Doto (whose surname was also written "Dato" and "Adone") reached the U.S. first, in 1904, settling with an uncle on President Street in Brooklyn. Adonis and three brothers crossed the Atlantic with their mother in the summer of 1909. They joined Michele, then living on Brooklyn's Carroll Street. Some reports indicate the family lived for a time in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, but these could not be confirmed.

Over the years, Giuseppe Doto used a number of aliases before settling on the one that became famous. He referred to himself as "James Arrosa" or "Joseph Arroso" in the mid-1920s and as "Joseph DeMio" in the early 1930s. He likely picked up his "Adonis" alias from the "Adone" surname previously used by his family around the time of the 1915 New York State Census. The name "Adonis" referred to a human character in Greek mythology known for his physical attractiveness and his great hunting ability. The origins of the Adonis myth appear to blur with those of the hunter Orion, and these hunter tales may have been regional adaptations of a single original story. Both characters had tragic encounters with Greek goddesses.

A longtime Brooklynite, Joe Adonis was arrested for assault and battery in 1922 (not prosecuted), for grand larceny and robbery in 1926 (discharged), disorderly conduct in 1927 (fined), liquor smuggling in 1931 (not indicted), assault and robbery in 1937 (discharged) and kidnapping and extortion in 1940 (dismissed). He was affiliated early in his criminal career with regional Mafia bigshots Frank Yale and Anthony "Little Augie" Pisano (Anthony Carfano). These associations may have brought Adonis into the orbit of late 1920s Sicilian Mafia boss of bosses Giuseppe Masseria. Adonis, Pisano, Vito Genovese and Mike Miranda became the most prominent Neapolitans working within the Giuseppe Masseria organization.

Unsupported legends: According to some writers, who provide no supporting documentation, Adonis attended a May 13-15, 1929, national "convention" of bootleggers in Atlantic City. There is no hard evidence that Adonis was in Atlantic City at this time or that the "convention" involved anyone outside of visiting Chicago gang bosses. Some sources have named Adonis one of the gunmen who assassinated boss of bosses Giuseppe Masseria at Gerardo Scarpato's Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant in Coney Island on April 15, 1931.

Mafia informant Joseph Valachi stated that Adonis - who directed criminal activity at the Brooklyn docks alongside Albert Anastasia and ran the Brooklyn eatery known as Joe's Italian Kitchen on Carroll Street and Fourth Avenue - was among those targeted for elimination by Maranzano after the conclusion of the Castellammarese War in 1931. Following Maranzano's assassination later that year, the Mafia reorganized. Adonis reportedly became a major player in the reorganized underworld, though his precise role, if any, in the Mafia hierarchy remains hazy.

Adonis's specific crime family affiliation has also been hazy. Some sources named him a top lieutenant in the Brooklyn Family of Vincent and Philip Mangano, while others placed him within Luciano's own Manhattan-based organization. Nicholas Gage suggested that Adonis was actually the first post-war leader of what became the Mangano Family, but this conflicted with accounts of better informed sources. (Gage did not offer a sufficient explanation for how or why Adonis became less than a Family boss later on.) Joe Bonanno, who probably knew Adonis' title, doesn't speak of it in his autobiography, and Valachi seems not to know anything about the Brooklyn mobster's status.

Evidence suggests that Adonis's authority - and close personal associations - overlapped the Mangano mob territory in Brooklyn, but that he owed his primary allegiance to his long-time friends Luciano and Frank Costello, based in Manhattan.

Adonis's mother, Maria DeVito Doto, passed away in the summer of 1934. His father died in April 1939.

Eventually, Adonis seemed to be everywhere and into everything - alcohol, gambling, drugs, union rackets, political shenanigans... He had established relationships with several Mafia Families and with some non-Italian gangs as well. Adonis was known to be a trusted ally and confidant of Frank Costello, who presided over Luciano's Manhattan Family after Luciano went to prison in the 1930s. Adonis joined Costello and Jewish mobsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Siegel in ownership of the Colonial Inn casino in Miami Beach and participated in gambling ventures in the Saratoga, New York, area. Adonis also shared a gambling empire in New Jersey with Mafioso Willie Moretti, Costello's close ally. His involvement in the Automotive Conveying Company of Cliffside Park, New Jersey, caught the attention of the U.S. Senate's Kefauver Committee and New Jersey prosecutors.

Adonis, who had long claimed to be an American native and who had settled in Fort Lee, NJ, in the mid-1940s (his Dearborn Road home was about a quarter mile from the Bluff Road home of Albert Anastasia), was shown to be an immigrant in the 1950s. Birth records indicating a 1901 birth in Passaic, New Jersey, were found to be fraudulent. Italian birth certificates, immigration records and early statements made by Adonis and his family members to authorities conflicted with statements Adonis made under oath before a New Jersey grand jury. Adonis was ordered to be deported in 1953. He fought that order in the courts. A voluntary deportation to Italy occurred in 1956 in the wake of a perjury charge stemming from the Kefauver Committee hearings.

One of the legendary fallings out between the American Mafiosi and the Kennedy Administration was allegedly over arrangements for the Mafia to support Kennedy's candidacy for President in return for Kennedy allowing Adonis back into the country. According to this tale, President John Kennedy was reportedly willing to welcome Adonis home, but Attorney General Robert Kennedy blocked the move.

The Italian government decided to inflict an exile within an exile upon Adonis on June 20, 1971. A Milan court demanded that he be restricted to the town of Ancona on Italy's Adriatic coast. Adonis died there of natural causes on Nov. 26, 1971. His remains were returned to the United States and buried Dec. 6 in Madonna Roman Catholic Cemetery in Fort Lee, NJ.

The Adonis funeral was relatively low-key. A cortege of fifteen automobiles, led by three cars of flowers, drove from Macagna's Funeral Home in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, to the funeral Mass at Epiphany Church. A private service was then held for Adonis's family - his wife, son and three daughters - and close friends at the chapel in Madonna Cemetery. The family and most attendees left before Adonis's casket was lowered into his grave. A number of reporters and photographers kept close watch on the event. There were no reports of known underworld figures in attendance.